Sunday, November 20, 2011

Voting takes time



"I got, got, got, got no time."
- Burton Cummings 


For the working and middle classes, voter turnout is positively correlated with amount of leisure time.  How many TV news sources do we have in Winnipeg alone?  I've never heard any of them make the connection between our busy North American lifestyles and low civic involvement.

Voter turnout is, if anything, too high.  I'm more concerned with people that do twenty minutes of internet research and feel satisfied that they are making an "informed decision" than with those who say they were too busy to understand the issues and thus didn't vote.  Even worse is the party system which let's people pick a team and be done with it.

Part of the core problem with voter turnout is time.  Start by making it easier for Sundays to be a day of rest rather than a day of Home Depot-then-WalMart-then-Safeway.  Make every Sunday a stat holiday.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Plastic is worse than lead


In the past twenty years I'd bet credit cards have ruined more lives than guns have.